VZCZCXRO9956
RR RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHDA RUEHDBU RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA
RUEHLN RUEHLZ RUEHROV RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHBS #0531/01 0471028
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 161028Z FEB 07
FM AMEMBASSY BRUSSELS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 4424
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHTV/AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV 4143

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BRUSSELS 000531 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EUR/OHI, EUR/UBI and DRL/SEAS-Ryckman 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KNAR SOCI PHUM BE
SUBJECT: Belgian Study Faults Country for 
Collaboration in Holocaust 
 
Ref: (A) 05 Brussels 1973 
 
 (B) 06 Brussels 2650 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary. A government-commissioned study 
faults Belgian government and society for 
collaborating with the Nazi Holocaust and the 
deportation of Belgian Jews.  The study analyzes the 
reasons for Belgian passivity and cooperation before 
and during the occupation.  Public and private 
response to the Report has been positive, though 
somber, and media coverage very thorough.  Whether 
the new Report will encourage reconsideration among 
supporters of Belgium's far-right, ultranationalist 
parties Vlaams Belang and National Front in the run- 
up to the June election is an open question.  End 
Summary. 
 
¶2. (U) On February 13, Belgium's Center for the 
Study and Documentation of War and Contemporary 
Society (CEGES) officially presented its 
comprehensive study on Belgian collaboration during 
the 1930s and 1940s.  (CEGES is a research institute 
under the Belgian Ministry of Economy, Energy, 
Foreign Trade and Science Policy, autonomously 
managed and independent in its views.)  The academic 
research, based on public and private archives in 
Belgium and elsewhere, finds the Belgian state was a 
passive collaborator in policies that led to the 
segregation, deportation, and extermination of 
Belgian Jews during the Holocaust.  According to the 
study, reasons for Belgian authorities' cooperation 
with the German occupation were "as much economic as 
ideological and administrative-legal," and led to an 
"enlightened authoritarian regime," a sort of Vichy 
Belgium. 
 
¶3. (U) The Report, entitled "Passive ("Docile") 
Belgium," was in preparation for nearly three years. 
It does not recommend legal pursuit of particular 
officials for their actions, but rather inventories 
the role public administrations played in 
persecution and deportation of at least 25,000 of 
Belgium's 65,000 Jewish citizens.  The report sees 
the history lesson of WWI, which saw Belgium's 
economy and society decimated by warfare, as a 
partial explanation of the predisposition not to 
resist during WWII.  Xenophobia mixed with anti- 
Semitism that was circulating in Belgian government 
circles during the period led to passive 
collaboration.  The study details the history of 
Belgian government regulations, participation, and 
ultimately collaboration, that resulted in the 
deportation of many thousands to Auschwitz.  On the 
positive side, cases of civic resistance to the Nazi 
schemes are also noted.  The Report concludes that 
Belgian collaboration during the period was "not 
worthy of a democracy." 
 
¶4. (U) Reaction from public authorities has been 
positive towards the thorough airing of the past, 
but regretful of the dark page of Belgian history 
the report spotlights.  Belgium's Senate, which 
originally requested the study in 2003, received the 
final Report at a hearing February 13 presided over 
by Senate President Anne-Marie Lizin (francophone 
Socialist).  She and other senators welcomed the 
report's role in clarifying the history.  Prime 
Minister Guy Verhofstadt issued a statement saying 
the conclusions of the report should be integrated 
into schoolbooks and included in the curriculum. 
Verhofstadt has previously publicly spoken of 
Belgium's responsibility during the war, 
particularly during his March 2005 visit to Yad 
Vashem in Israel. 
 
¶5. (U) Representatives of Jewish organizations and 
Belgian Holocaust survivors groups welcomed the 
Report for finally addressing questions that had 
been put aside for 60 years.  As a representative of 
the Council of Jewish Organizations said, "We knew 
from our parents who knew, saw and lived through the 
events what had happened; but this Report is an 
official step.  Belgium finally accepts to recognize 
its past."  The head of the Forum of Jewish 
Organizations called the report very important; ?We 
are shocked by the contents of the report, but we 
congratulate the Belgian state for the courage it 
took to execute this investigation.  The report 
confirms, for the first time, the involvement of the 
 
BRUSSELS 00000531  002 OF 002 
 
 
Belgian state.? 
 
¶6. (SBU) Comment: Post notes that the Report, 
although long in gestation, was released in the run- 
up to important federal elections in June.  Given 
the subtext of the study - that Belgium during the 
war decade lost its bearings and veered towards 
xenophobia and passivity in the face of racism ? its 
release now is meant as a pointed lesson for 
supporters of today's far-right political parties. 
Members of the Jewish community in Flanders, and 
others recently courted by the Vlaams Belang over 
personal security fears connected with the North 
African immigrant population, may be recalling that 
the origins of the far-right parties included overt 
anti-Semitism.  End Comment. 
 
¶7. (U) Post noted previously (reftels) the Holocaust 
restitution program established in Belgium.  The 
program continues to review and award damages in 
over 6,000 cases that were filed by victims and 
their families.  Embassy will update that program's 
status septel. 
 
Imbrie